3. THEIR HIGHNESSES
The Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus had his apartments on the first floor. His bedroom, like that of Louis XIV., was in the centre of the main building, and there was a study on the right, overlooking the park.
Thither Kessel led me at ten o'clock in the morning of the day after my arrival.
The Grand Duke was working at a plain Louis Quinze bureau. He rose and held out his hand.
"Monsieur Vignerte, I have no need to tell you all the compliments Count Marçais pays you in his letter. I know that you represent the personal choice of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs. It would be absurd of me to conceal from you that I am absolutely satisfied with such references. My only wish is that you may find at Lautenburg something of the welcome we hope to give you."
The Grand Duke, only a year younger than his elder brother, the late Grand Duke Rudolph, is fairly tall. Born in 1868, he is now forty-five. Fair, rather bald and clean-shaven, he has blue eyes, which at first seem to fasten on you and then wander away. Except on ceremonial occasions I have never seen him in anything but the undress uniform of a Divisional General, dark blue with the red collar and no decorations.
He had fine hands, which he appeared to contemplate with some satisfaction.
"Major von Kessel," he continued, "has probably explained to you the nature of your duties. I need hardly say that I wish you to have the utmost liberty as to the way in which you perform them. My son is entered for Kiel University, and I wish him to take his degree there. You must therefore keep your eye on a syllabus. But beyond that, adopt what methods you think good. Your special subjects are History and Literature. I do not know your political views, Monsieur," he added, smiling. "No doubt somewhat Liberal. But don't feel obliged to change them. Liberalism is formidable only to democracies. Intelligent sovereigns have always known how to use it for their own purposes."
He rang a bell.
"Inform Duke Joachim that I want him to come to my study."
My pupil was a tall, very fair young man, rather sleepy-looking. I realized that I should never have cause to check the speed of his wits.
"Joachim," said the Grand Duke, in a less pleasant tone than that with which he had favoured me, "this is Monsieur Vignerte, your new Professor of Literature. I hope the progress you make under his charge will be more rapid than when you were with Herr Ulricht. What marks did he get, Kessel, in his last tactics examination?"
"Eight out of twenty," replied Kessel.
"It's not enough. You must get half marks next time. You can go."
The young man went out with ill-concealed relief.
"You see, monsieur," said the Grand Duke, turning to us, "you can always count absolutely on my authority. Mark my son strictly, if anything stiffly, and you will always have my approval."
He motioned to us to withdraw. "By the way," he added, recalling me, "did Marçais tell you you might occasionally be required to display your gifts as a reader to the Archduchess? Oh," he added, "I ought perhaps to give you a warning, though it may be excessive caution on my part. It is quite possible that my wife won't call upon you at all. At the moment she has returned to her old passion for horses. But, in any case, it does no harm to be forewarned, and you may be quite sure," he concluded, with a smile which he well knew how to make irresistible, "that I shall see that no unreasonable demands are made upon your leisure."
"I shall be happy to put myself entirely at the Grand Duchess's disposal whenever she so desires."
"Thank you," he said, and turned to his work.
In the corridor Kessel said:
"If the Grand Duchess takes it into her head to see you, she will send a message immediately through me. I shall communicate with your valet, so don't fail to call at your rooms."
Thus it was that from the day after my arrival at the castle to the day of the fête of the Lautenburg Hussars, where I saw her for the first time, I called at my rooms five or six times a day, more disappointed than I cared to admit that the summons which would manifest the good pleasure of the Grand Duchess Aurora-Anna-Eleanor towards me was not forthcoming.